Black AIDS Awareness Day – How young black men in Oakland are faring in 2013

In Oakland, the group where HIV infection rates are growing the fastest, is described as YBMSM or young, black men who have sex with men.

Precise numbers for Oakland aren’t available, but of 153 HIV positive young people with HIV living in Alameda County last year, 72.5 percent of them were male and 56 percent of them were African-American.

Even more telling, of 526 men diagnosed with HIV in Alameda county from 2009-2011, 73 percent were infected through same sex relations. Only 7 percent of infections in men came from heterosexual sex.

Minister Rob Newells is director of Healing Faith at Imani Community Church and
member of the National Minority AIDS Council. He also works at Oakland Children’s Hospital and was a 2011-12 fellow for the Black AIDS Institute.

When describing YBMSM late last year, he described a community that doesn’t have it’s own programs or safe spaces.

“Since SMAAC doesn’t exist anymore, there’s no real place for them. Youth Uprising and Youth Radio don’t have specific MSM programs,” he said. “There aren’t a lot of gay/straight alliances at the high schools. There’s not a [LGBT] community center in Oakland yet.”